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Isabella Bank Institute for Entrepreneurship

We are a dedicated institute for student entrepreneurs across campus and beyond. We aim to maximize your success by fostering your entrepreneurial mindset, promote inter-disciplinary collaboration and provide support for the creation and development of your new ventures. Jumpstart your ideas and get involved today!

Tune in for excitement!

Passion. Potential. Pitches. Don't miss any of the 2025 New Venture Challenge excitement.

Tune in Friday, April 11 at 1 p.m. for great ideas and fierce competition. Then, join the judges, mentors, spectators and teams as they see who is going home with thousands of dollars in venture financing. The awards broadcast begins at 6:30 p.m. and one team will walk away as the overall best venture. 

Start your entrepreneurial journey

Central Michigan University’s College of Business Administration is the home of the Isabella Bank Institute for Entrepreneurship and the first Department of Entrepreneurship in the state of Michigan. We are a student-centric hub where experiential, curricular, and external entrepreneurial opportunities intersect.

Our mission is to maximize student success by fostering a campus-wide entrepreneurial mindset that promotes inter-disciplinary collaboration and the creation of new ventures.

We aim to create innovative programming, boost cross-campus and ecosystem collaboration and provide a comprehensive mentoring program.

Our institute provides extracurricular opportunities and is open to all undergraduate and graduate CMU students.

Student opportunities

  • Meet experienced alumni, faculty, entrepreneurs, investors, and other business and political leaders.
  • Learn practical skills, innovative thinking, and connect with mentors and entrepreneurial resources.
  • Attend skill-building workshops and compete in pitch competitions and Hackathons.
  • Take part in special scholarship programs and travel experiences.
  • Pitch your venture at our signature New Venture Challenge event and compete for up to $20,000 in cash awards.

      Find your path

      Are you interested in becoming an entrepreneur?

      Every journey is unique. Explore the opportunities that interest you.

      Testing racial equity measure in afterschool learning

      by Kara Owens

      Gina McGovern, Ph.D., a professor in the department of Human Development and Family Studies, spent the summer of 2022 working with undergraduate senior Anyah Lewis to study the racial equity-based teaching practices afterschool educators are implementing in their social-emotional learning programming with youth.

      Through eight focus groups with afterschool educators, McGovern and Lewis investigated how a recently developed to measure, known as the Racial Equity-Oriented Social-Emotional Learning (REQSEL) measure, can be adapted for out-of-school settings. The REQSEL measure, developed with Deborah Rivas-Drake, Ph.D., and colleagues at the University of Michigan, was designed to “assess the extent to which practitioners advance racial equity through their social-emotional learning practices.” This measure builds on findings from the School and Community Pathways to Engagement project, and has four components:

      1) awareness of diverse ethnic/racial identities and experiences

      2) acknowledging and addressing racial injustice

      3) acknowledging and addressing xenophobia

      4) supporting students’ agency, voice, and power

      Professor McGovern’s study also investigated how these practices align with trauma-informed approaches to social-emotional learning and the barriers that prevent afterschool educators from implementing racial equity-based social-emotional learning practices. McGovern and Lewis are currently analyzing their results for publication.

      This story is brought to you by the Office of Research and Graduate Studies.

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